


yours, from across the ever-expansive sea

by parrishes_and_pitches



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Epistolary, Kinda?, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Minor Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Pining, Ronan POV, Slow Burn, adam pov, mentions of abuse, told through letters, ww1 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-11-15 21:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 20,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18080954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parrishes_and_pitches/pseuds/parrishes_and_pitches
Summary: ronan lynch, a small-town farm boy from virginia, has journeyed thousands of miles from home to join the war. stationed in france, conflicts drive a wedge between himself and his family. he finds that his only connection to henrietta these days is his friend adam parrish, a factory worker and aspiring scholar denied from the army. the two exchange letters that span across both the sea between them and the wars they fight on their own fronts, finding common ground in their struggles and growing feelings for one another. these are those letters.





	1. june 28, 1917

**Author's Note:**

> i apologize in advance for how long this fic is gonna be. 29 chapters sounds crazy to me, since i’ve never written a fic that long. on the bright side, the chapters will probably be erring on the short side. either way, i promise you guys it'll be worth it. hope you stick with me! :D 
> 
> also, be sure to pay attention to the chapter titles. they are the dates the letters are sent!

dear ronan,

it's been two days since you left for war, and henrietta seems smaller for it. strange how one person can make such a difference, isn't it? it's the same town it's always been. the breeze is still just as warm and gentle, the pavement still just as uneven, the people still just as ordinary. but without you running about wreaking havoc and dragging me along, it feels like an altered place. i couldn't tell you exactly how, though. it’s quieter, i suppose. i find that it is almost unnatural. you and your particular brand of chaos have become a fixture in my life since i met you last august, and i'm not sure whether i consider its absence a relief or not. at least i am now left to my studies in some semblance of peace.

how are you finding france? as i am writing this letter, you and gansey would be sailing across the atlantic to meet whatever awaits you on the front (i hope you make it through that in one piece, by the way. i know you have never been partial to boats of any kind). but when this letter reaches you, i'm sure that you will have been there for about a week (though this may be a generous estimate). i've read a couple of stories in the papers about life on the front. i've seen some photographs taken by journalists over there. i really hope that you can provide me with an account that is perhaps not so bleak. the things i've read... i can’t even begin to imagine what that must be like. (and now i am beginning to imagine that asking after your impressions of france was not a well thought out question. sorry.)

somehow, i find that i still want to go. does that surprise you, ronan? it surprises me, a bit. i don’t think i realized how badly i wanted to go until you and gansey left. blue says i'm crazy for wanting it after all the stories in the papers. when i told her about this desire the day of your departure, she told me that to go would be to throw my life away (which is not the strongest argument. if it didn't stop gansey, it surely wouldn't stop me. nor was it much of a comfort, if that was her aim. though, knowing her, i don’t believe it was). but is it truly crazy to want an escape? would i be insane to risk my life if it meant i could get away? maybe. maybe i am crazy for wanting such a thing.

you understand, though. don't you?

whatever the case may be, it is not as if i have much of a choice in the matter. if i had it my way, i would have no need of a pen and paper to communicate with you. i would be right there with you and gansey. i would not need to ask you how france is, because i would be able to see it for myself. i would know these things. i _should_ know them. instead, i am stuck here. bound to the factory. bound to this small town and its simple people. 

bound to my father.

of course, you know this already, ronan. you are familiar with the small disaster that is my life and my situation. i will try not to burden you much with it, though you will have to forgive me if i speak of it now and again. still, i hardly have the right to complain, especially not to you. you will probably be experiencing much worse over there. ~~i only wish~~

i hope you are not disappointed to hear from me. i doubt that i am who you would be expecting a letter from. in truth, i find myself wondering if you have thought about me at all since you left. surely you have bigger things to worry about. besides, the way you left things back here, i don't know if you would be expecting a letter from anyone at all. but, knowing you as i do, i'm guessing that you were somewhat hoping for a letter from your brothers. one of them, at least. whatever the case may be, i thought that perhaps you could use some small piece of normalcy, especially with the way things will be changing. and i am hoping that i can be the one to provide that for you. i will keep the letters coming on a regular basis, if you’d like me to.

your friend, adam parrish


	2. july 7, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan writes his first letter to adam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is coming out way sooner than i thought, but hey, that's the miracle of procrastinating on an essay, amirite ladies? i never promised the updates would be regular. i like to keep you guys on your toes.

dear parrish,

france is a hell of a lot different than henrietta.

you asked me a stupid question in your letter, so i will present you with a stupid answer.

where to begin on all of the ways that it’s different over here? well, it is much… rougher, i guess is the word i’m looking for. last week, i had to shave my head for reasons i would prefer not to talk about or repulse you with, so i won’t. i will just leave you with this piece of advice: when you share a living space with countless other men who are just as filthy as you are, for the love of all that is holy, wash your hair as much as is humanly possible.

it is also different in the way that a lot of people here speak french. i do not. (i bet you’d pick it up in the first few days, you bastard. well, not all of us can be some kind of genius, so touché.) (hey, there’s some french for you. see, i’m learning.) 

as for the stories you have read… they’re not entirely accurate. i mean, yes, there have already been many times that were more intense than i ever could have imagined. times where things are just like what the reporters write about. but that is not the entire story. i would say that describes a fourth of my time here so far. the rest is just the anticipation of those intense moments. sometimes it gets to the point where the wait is just so agonizing, you begin to wish that those fucks on the other side would get off their asses and do something already.

hope that’s enough to ease your mind, parrish. it's not very happy information, but then again, what else did you expect? happiness is not a thing that exists in bounds out here.

you mentioned my brothers in your letter. i’m not surprised by that. i know that you like them. but i’m not sorry for the way i left things. i am only sorry that matthew has to endure the fallout.

anyway, thanks for your concern about the journey here. not going to lie to you, parrish, it was brutal. the journey seemed to go on for millennia. the sea seemed to expand outward forever, like i would never get to see the other side. it was as if the ocean was alive beneath me, a creature that had lived to see the dawn of civilization, and would live to see it in ruins.

morbid, i know. i guess i was in a morbid sort of mood. going off to fight in a war, after all. or maybe i was just delirious from seasickness. that is more likely. i swear, if i ever set foot on one of those god-forsaken ships again, it will be too soon.

france is different from henrietta, yes, but right now i find myself wondering how it might be similar. if the war hadn’t happened. i think it could be something beautiful, somewhere i would not mind spending my time. i catch whispers of henrietta every now and then, even though there’s an entire sea between here and there. small things. a warm breeze, a patch of grass, the glow of the sun as it dips beneath the horizon.

your letter.

no, parrish, i am not disappointed that you wrote. you were right (hold onto that, because i don’t say it often). it could do me some good, having some sort of connection to home. something a little more concrete than a warm breeze or some shit like that. and if you wanted to go that bad (which, yes, of course i understand. it is why i am here. i bet you never thought we would have something in common, huh?), then my letters to you will serve the same function. you will have a little piece of the front with you in henrietta. a far less deadly piece, but a piece nonetheless. i know that does not make up for being denied from the army, but it is better than nothing, don’t you think?

definitely keep writing me letters, parrish. not only for a piece of home, but also because i’m going to need something to keep me sane through gansey’s ramblings and hourly expressions of missing blue.

yours, ronan lynch

p.s., you probably think i’m joking with the bit about gansey. i am not. i think he is a little out of his depth here. the man didn’t know how to punch properly until i showed him how. he means well, of course, but i think his ideas might have obscured what is really in front of him. and no, i do not exaggerate when i say hourly expressions of missing blue. it was sweet at first. now i just want to demonstrate my teachings about punching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who's been reading so far! it means so much to me! chapter three on its way at some point in the near future.


	3. july 31, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam reflects on henrietta summers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends! here's chapter three! this chapter was fueled by me having cold brew for the first time, which was definitely A Mistake. but it gave me the energy to write, so.

dear ronan, 

it’s truly a shame you’re missing out on summer here at home. it's turning out to be exactly how you've always liked it. not a cloud in the sky, a mild breeze, the ever-present sun with its benevolent warmth. summer is turning out to be something beautiful this year. and from what i’ve read about french summers, i suppose you’ll be missing the weather here in henrietta. i know you don’t care much for the heat.

though the weather is probably the last thing on your mind. while i am glad you are not actively risking your life every waking moment, it almost sounds worse, just waiting for it to happen. that is something i can understand without being there. the anticipation of knowing that something will happen but not knowing when.

i have been thinking about summer a lot recently. remembering how we used to spend it, before you left. you, gansey, blue, noah, and i would pass as much time as possible in the forest just east of town. we would escape the sun by nestling among the monstrous roots of our favorite tree. we would talk about things that never really mattered but were important to us.

i remember one day you brought a switchblade that had been a gift from your father. we didn’t know you had it until you withdrew it from your pocket without warning (gansey nearly had a heart attack, as i recall) and carved your name into the base of the tree’s trunk. you said that now some part of you would last forever. i thought that was an oddly thoughtful thing for you to say (even though trees are hardly things that last forever. but still, i was impressed), so i held out my hand for the knife. you gave it to me, and i carved my own name beside yours. i corrected you then, saying that some part of  _ us _ would last forever.

the group, that is. the others carved in their names after i did.

by the end of summer, we didn’t return to the forest as much as we used to. autumn brought many changes, as autumn is inclined to do. blue and i began to work more hours at the factory and i threw myself headlong into my education, while you and gansey began preparations for the army. without me. suddenly there wasn’t much time for  _ us _ anymore.

getting in the way of us is another thing for me to loathe about the factory. my list of reasons is already two miles long, but it just seems to continue to grow. i loathe it for dividing us. i loathe it for distracting from my education. i loathe it for not caring about me, or any of the others. i loathe that in spite of all of this, i still need it. 

at least i do not need to loathe it for keeping me from the war. that is one of the few things that is not the factory’s fault. 

i found myself visiting the forest the other day. i was alone. it feels like a different place when i’m on my own. i sat among the roots of our old tree, which seemed larger than they ever did when you all were with me. strangely enough, it didn’t feel lonely. those roots are full of our history. it made me feel like i wasn’t alone. our carvings are worn now, with the passage of a year, but when i traced the letters of our names with my fingertips, they seemed brand-new. i felt a year younger in that moment, like the time ahead of me still had the potential be filled with wonderful things.

how naive i was a year ago.

the memories i found there have me reaching for another that i can’t quite put my finger on. i think you might be able to help me with this, ronan. one day, i can’t recall exactly when, you said a phrase in latin (it figures that you can say something in a dead language at the drop of a hat, and yet you cannot speak french). i cannot remember what the phrase was, but lately i’ve been wanting to hear it again. it meant something to me, back then. maybe if i could recover it, i could also recover some of that hope i used to have.

i am sure it will come to me one of these days. if there’s one thing i can rely on nowadays, it is my mind.  either way, be sure to tell me if you ever happen to remember. it was a beautiful thing to say. 

yours, adam

p.s., i have been trying to imagine you without those curls i have always been so familiar with. i just cannot fathom you with a shaved head. it doesn’t seem natural. also, be sure to wish gansey my best. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, friends!!


	4. august 10, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends! next week, i’ll be on spring break, and i plan on writing a lot, so chapters will come a bit more frequently for a little while! so be sure to keep an eye out for updates ;)

dear parrish, 

gansey has made a new friend (as impossible as that sounds, with us being in the midst of a war and all). this means that i have made a new friend. 

i’m not certain how much i like my new friend.

his name is henry cheng, he is apparently also from virginia, and if i ever thought that gansey was not suited for this war, this man is even less so. which is probably the reason that gansey seems to like him so much.

a week or so ago, the three of us ended up stationed together at the same post along the front. it was a quiet night. nothing but a clear sky full of stars and the dull stagnancy surrounding us. which was evidently all the invitation gansey and cheng needed to cozy up around the fire and strike up a conversation. 

cheng is ~~a lunatic~~  idealistic. he has these visions of grandeur about the glories this war will bring america and how it will elevate the downtrodden or whatever. he has a lot of big ideas with no real foundation to them. it’s a load of bullshit. but, of course, gansey seems to be fully enamored by the righteousness of it all.

gansey came to admire the man in the span of about an hour. you know how gansey is. needless to say, cheng has now made gansey and i’s duo into a trio. in the past week, he has hardly left our company. it’s incredibly irritating. whenever the three of us have some quiet (relatively speaking) to ourselves, it becomes some sort of convention of ideas in which they fantasize about life after the war, what it will all be like when we win and rise above our stations, or whatever other bullshit they come up with that evening. 

this is what i meant about gansey not being able to handle this war. gansey seems to have the idea stuck in his head that this will all amount to something wonderful. he seems to think that winning this war will magically solve all of our problems. and this new friendship with cheng does nothing to help stop this mindset. i’ll tell you this, parrish, if i thought the idea was at all possible, i’d be just as caught up with cheng’s ~~lunacy~~  romantics as gansey is, and you would never hear the end of it. instead, you will never hear the end of me complaining about it.

they are nice enough thoughts, i guess. but that’s all they are. nice thoughts. cheng and gansey parade them around like they know they’re going to be the reality. i do not know how to tell them that reality won’t be such a pretty picture.

whenever they start talking about that sort of thing, i find myself imagining what you would say if you were here with us. something pragmatic and intelligent, i’ll bet. something to bring them back down to earth without making them crash-land like i would. you would know how to handle their naivety. because, despite what you said in your last letter, you’ve never been naive, parrish. not for a moment. because, let’s be honest, if you were, i wouldn’t want to put up with you. 

anyways, i find that i really do prefer the henrietta summers to the one i’ve been facing in france. and no, not for the weather, and not for your enticing description of it. no, i prefer it because of how everything seemed so small and unimportant. well, no, that’s not exactly right. at the time it  _ was _ important. but from here, across the sea, everything seems so much smaller.

it was quieter back then, too. in the sense that there was no gunfire or bombs or screams of wounded men, of course, but also just in the way it felt. the war is, if i’m honest, thrilling. there is some inexplicable part of me that loves the rush of it all. but back in henrietta, the rush was in the small things. that was where i would find my excitement, back then. i found it in times like when you would arrive at the farm after a long, peaceful afternoon of work, and we would go and make our own thrill out of nothing.

war is not… what i thought it would be. that sounds stupid. i wasn’t expecting it to be easy, and it definitely is not easy, but it is not quite what i had imagined, either. i don’t really know what it is. it’s like something is missing.

i would tell you the quote if i remembered it, parrish (it seems i am now as incompetent with latin as i am with french). i will think about it, but it has been so long since i said it, and so much has changed. as far as i know, you’re the only thing that hasn’t changed lately. 

stay that way, parrish. 

yours, ronan lynch


	5. august 17, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam confides some struggles on his front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again friends! remember to keep an eye out for more frequent updates as i move into spring break! enjoy!

dear ronan,

since my last letter, i have begun to write out in our old forest. i find that it provides a little bit of that quiet you spoke of. that’s something that i am currently in great need of, and i find that it is something surprisingly difficult to attain. my life as of late has been a bit too much rush and not nearly enough quiet.

it’s not only my letters that i take out to the forest. i visit every time i need to write for school, as well. really, i just try to go as much as i can manage. i nestle myself among the monstrous roots of our favorite tree, and i let the quiet consume me, if only for a little while. the forest has become a safe haven, of sorts. a sterile place where i can allow myself to forget what happens outside its limits.

things at home are not quite as peaceful as you might romanticize, ronan. they never have been. as you fight a real war over on the front, i fight my own here in henrietta. and to be honest with you, ronan, i know that i would prefer to be there with you by far. i know that it wouldn’t be any easier, but at least there i would be able to make some sort of difference in the world. do something that really matters. instead, i’m here. stuck.

you are familiar with my relationship with my father. i hate to use the word “relationship”, because it implies that there is any sort of care between us. i would say tolerance in its stead, but even that is a stretch sometimes. at any rate, earlier today, he was… intolerant, i suppose. he had noticed that i have been taking less hours at the factory recently, as i am trying to focus on my education. this was an idea that he obviously was not impressed by.

i already can’t seem to recall the specifics of the incident. i tend to… lose focus, when he gets in such a state. i sort of detach, i suppose. all i really remember is his dulled yelling and the sudden impact of being shoved into the wall of the apartment. i remember the impact making a bit of dust rain from the ceiling. the rest is a blur.

i am just glad it wasn’t any worse.

you are probably going to be annoyed by my saying so, ronan, but i don’t think gansey or that henry cheng have such bad ideas. not that i believe them, of course. but i don’t think their ideas are as senseless as you make them out to be. i admire that capacity gansey and cheng have to believe that things will get better after this war. i think it’s a wonderful thing, to believe that the only way to go from here is upwards. i wish that i could believe it too.

but i agree with you. it is certainly a nice thought.

anyways, shortly after the encounter with my father, i found your letter in the post. what convenient timing that was. i took your letter, as well as my paper and pen to respond, and i headed east toward the forest, where i now take shelter. i have taken my place among the roots, and the memories they hold help me feel less alone. with your words on these pages, and the forest around me, i feel somewhat like i used to, when you were here. like i share a little of your love for the rush.

i will admit, your presence used to be a source of agitation ~~and occasionally annoyance~~. but tonight, i find that even the traces of it within your letter are quite comforting. so, thank you.

it’s beginning to get dark out here. i’ve never come out to write this late. perhaps next time i’ll bring a candle. i can’t see much of what i’m writing anymore, so my apologies if this becomes illegible, but i don’t want to go back home. i think i will stay here for a little while longer. maybe reread your letter.

i wonder what you are doing right now. maybe you are sleeping, though i find it hard to believe that sleep is an easy thing to come by out there.  

maybe you’re thinking of me too.

it’s a worthless sentiment, because i know that our situations are not at all comparable, but i really do wish to hear that you are better off than i am, in some way.

yours hopefully, adam


	6. september 1, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan tells a story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends! i'm actually really proud of how this chapter turned out. writing action is always kinda hard for me, espectially retrospective like this is, but i think i did a pretty good job! enjoy! and also i'm sorry.

dear parrish,

i’m going to tell you a story. you will probably hear a lot of them when i get back, when we see each other again, but this one cannot wait. i think it’s something you need to hear. i think it’s something i need to tell.

my letters so far have been, if you can believe it, censored. clearly, i haven’t been telling you every little detail of my time here so far. i figure that it’s not something that you would wish to hear. i know that i wouldn’t want to hear about it if our roles were reversed. the things that happen out here are what my nightmares are now made of. but i think that maybe, if i can get it down on paper, i might be able to sleep a little better at night. maybe you’ll get something out of it too. hope you do.

several days ago, the front plunged into combat. it was one of those glorious, awful times that we lay in anticipation of whenever we aren’t facing it. the air was alight with enemy fire, my ears overwhelmed with the roaring of the bombs and men surrounding me. my rifle seemed to be a natural extension of my arm, something i had been born with.

it seemed as though the world was ending. the environment around me was volatile, and it felt as if the only reason i was still going was simple coincidence. in times like those, there is no god. not one that i would believe in, at least.

i said i loved the rush in my previous letter, and in some capacity, i do, but i’ll admit, parrish: i was scared. (you can consider yourself special now. i don’t tell just anybody that i’m scared.) it’s not exactly a great feeling when you know that there is nobody out there, not even above you, who can help you.

because of the rampant explosions and the screaming, i didn’t realize that the enemy had managed to infiltrate our side until they were on me. a stampede of men passed by me in a flurry, and i didn’t have the chance to make sense of the situation before i was on my back.

above me was a young man, perhaps a year or two my junior, and i knew he was an enemy the second i realized that the thing in my face was the bad end of his rifle. he had his grimy boot planted on my chest, firmly at the base of my sternum, keeping me on the ground. he said something to me, though i couldn’t understand him through the apocalypse around us and the foreign language on his tongue.

my rifle was gone, lost somewhere in the stampede. i might as well have lost my entire arm for the disadvantage this put me in. i couldn’t tell you how i managed it, how i didn’t lose myself to panic or resignation, but i somehow, miraculously, got him off his feet and wrestled the weapon away from him, though i didn’t have the chance to do much more than that. the man was a fighter. we were reduced to two simple beings, grappling in the mud with the savage world raging around us.

something came over me then. something that was angry and savage and primal. it was that same thing within me that took pleasure in the violence of war, excitement in the chaos-stricken environment i live in. it was the animal whose heart thunders with the sound of the artillery, who breathes in the volatile gas and exhales the end of life.

it terrified me. in that moment, i was more scared of myself than anything i’d faced so far. i feared what i might be capable of in such a state, what i would be willing to do when that feeling overtook me. 

the worst part of it all was that i could see that same spirit in the other man. i could see it in the way he bared his teeth, the way he went for my eyes with his bloodied fingers, the way he ruthlessly fought to reach his abandoned rifle only a few feet away. i could see that the spirit within him would not cease until i was dead, and i could tell that the one within me was the same way.

there was a sort of solidarity between us. i don’t know if he felt it, but i did. it seemed like i knew him. like perhaps in another life, we might have been friends. brothers. i didn’t understand it, but i couldn’t afford to understand it right then. all i knew was that i had to be the one to survive that day. i had to be the one to get to go home someday. i had to _believe_ that i would be the one.

i’m not proud of what I did that day.

but i would do it all again if it meant that i could turn the full force of that primal spirit on your father. fucker deserves it.

my point is this: if you are fighting a war just as i am, i want you to remember that you are the winning side. and i want you to believe that you are capable of doing whatever it takes to ensure that that will be your reality. that belief is what will keep you alive.

your fellow soldier, ronan lynch

p.s., our situations may not be comparable, but your problems aren’t nothing because of it. you’re allowed to struggle just like i am. and sorry to disappoint, but i'm not doing much better than you are. but hey, at least we aren’t alone, right?


	7. september 27, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam reflects on war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends! as of right now, i am officially on spring break! i hope to update much more frequently for the next week, so saddle up!

dear ronan,

i’ve spent the past few days since receiving your letter just trying to figure out how to respond. what could i possibly say that would ease your mind when i’m here, and you’re halfway across the world?

i won’t pretend to know what you’re going through. i want nothing more than to understand, trust me. all i can understand is what you tell me about your experiences and what i read in the papers, and i couldn’t begin to explain how frustrating that is. and i can’t help but think about how little comfort a simple letter must provide when you are constantly risking your life and making decisions no man should have to make. if only i could just be there to tell you these things in person, to share in this burden with you, to _understand_.

is it strange that i still feel guilty about not being able to go? because i do. it weighs on me every day, the knowledge that i am stuck here not being able to do an ounce of good, while you and gansey and everyone else are over there, changing the world, or whatever it is you choose to believe you are doing. it feels like i am not enough.

i know that i shouldn’t feel this way. it isn’t as if it was my fault that i couldn’t go. i cannot help that they denied me, and i cannot help that that decision was a result of my father’s actions.

i despise him for keeping me here. even when that was not his goal in what he did (i don’t think he ever has an actual goal in what he does), it was still the result. because this is how the world seems to work. he has me bound at the ankles to this town, the factory, that apartment.

as much i loathe him for that, i loathe him far more for the limitation of my understanding. i hate him _so much_ for making me so useless. though i do appreciate that “primal spirit” you mentioned. sometimes i wish i could muster such fury in myself.

well, no, that’s not quite the right phrasing, is it? the fury is there. i can feel it within me. it’s more about inciting action from that fury. that’s what i wish i could do. ~~though at times i fear that this would make me like him~~

i never thought the war would magically solve all the problems in the world, but i had once hoped that maybe it would solve mine. you told me i am not naive, ronan, but what else could you call that?

you’d probably call that belief in my side, wouldn’t you? you would say that i am a soldier in some way, that this is a war i’m fighting. one without trenches or gunfire, but a war just the same. what an interesting perspective that is.

i think it’s a perspective i can believe in. i think i can believe in the notion that even if we are facing disparate tribulations, we aren’t alone in fighting them. and because i refuse to leave you alone, i promise that i will keep fighting this war. i will persist in staying strong on this front, so that you will have some semblance of home when you return from yours.

because you do deserve to make it back home, ronan. keep fighting and make it back to us.

speaking of us, i ran into matthew and declan downtown the other day. matthew asked after word from you, wondering if we had been corresponding. he told me that he hadn’t heard anything from you since you left. declan didn’t say anything to me, but i could tell that he was listening. i filled them in on what you’ve told me. (except of course the contents of your last letter. while i am glad that you told me about it, and while i do hope that confiding some of your thoughts helped you to sleep that night, it isn’t exactly a pleasant thing to hear about. especially when it concerns someone you care about.)

i told them about how you’ve been, but i shouldn’t have had to be the one to do so. this is probably one of the few things about your situation that i can understand. i know that things between you and declan have been ~~explosive~~ tense since you enlisted. and i can understand wanting to hold a grudge, god knows i can. but declan clearly cares about you. and if you are unwilling to make amends with him, matthew at least deserves more than being left to fear the day the mail might come and deliver news of your death.

i’m trying my best to maintain a connection to home for you, but i can’t be the only one putting in an effort. write to your brothers, ronan.

yours, adam


	8. october 13, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan reflects on what drives him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow two chapters in one day. spring break, babey!!

dear parrish,

i wrote to matthew. you were right, he deserves better than silence.

i just thought that the distance would do him some good. i thought that maybe if i didn’t tell him anything, i could protect him from having to bear the knowledge. it’s not an easy thing to carry. but it wasn’t right of me to leave him in the dark like that. so i wrote to him and told him about how i’m doing. (an idealized version, of course. i must at least try to protect him, as much as i can.)

but declan’s still a bastard and i don’t plan on writing to him any time soon. if he cares so much, he can subsist on what i wrote to matthew.

you said you could understand holding grudges, so you must know what i mean. how could i not hold a grudge against him? how could i not, after he accused me of abandoning our family for the war after our parents died? how could i not, after he essentially called me a coward that runs when the going gets tough? i don’t owe him shit. not a letter, not an explanation, not my time.

i guess he thought that saying that bullshit would keep me at home. he was wrong. he only gave me something to prove. he only provided a spark that lit an incendiary anger in me, which has only burned hotter in the months i’ve been away.

if he cares so much, he wouldn’t have pushed me away.

but it’s good to hear that you’re willing to put up a fight, parrish. your dedication has always been a quality that i’ve found impressive. (it takes a special kind of person to endure school like you do. an insane kind, maybe, but still special.) you keep that fight up, and we’ll make it through this war together. i’ll find a way to cross the world again without one of those godforsaken boats, and then we can share all of the war stories that wouldn’t fit within a couple of pages.

i can imagine you’ve been getting plenty of updates on gansey from blue, (i know that i’ve been hearing _a lot_ about her from gansey. sometimes i wonder what will kill him first: the war or me.) but he’s actually been doing well on this front. at this point i thought the war would have destroyed him. i thought at least he’d get some kind of serious injury. but to my surprise, he seems to be adapting. i wouldn’t call it thriving, exactly, because i wouldn’t say that anyone who spends most of their time in holes in the ground is “thriving”, but he isn’t doing as bad as i thought he would be. the worst that’s happened to him in the way of injuries so far is a concussion from a couple weeks ago. (though, to be fair, that did keep him off his feet for a few days.)

i cannot tell if he is actually faring well, though, or if he is just very good at pretending he is. either way, there’s something different about him these days. it’s a good difference, though. a little more fire in his eyes, a little more unbridled passion in his face. a little more of something i can see in myself. it reminds me of why we became friends.

i still don’t like henry cheng all that much, though.

anyway, i mention gansey because he said something the other day that has been making me think. (i know, it’s a miracle.) we were stationed at our usual post, gansey, cheng, and me, and gansey said that he hopes to make it through this war because he would like to marry blue someday. he said the thought of a future in which that is possible is what enables him to carry on.

his saying this gave me pause. not the marrying blue aspect. that was not at all surprising, given how he is inclined to talk about her at least once an hour or spontaneously combust. but the part about how the thought keeps him going, that’s what has stuck with me for the past few days. i keep asking myself what is doing that for me. it could be the anger toward declan, but being driven by spite is not something that i want. i can let it fuel me, but i won’t let it rule me.

recently i’ve been thinking that it might be your letters that keep me going. after all, you’ve been doing a great job keeping me sane through gansey’s ceaseless moaning about how much he misses blue. even if you do tend to wax poetic about your thoughts. (not that i’ve ever come to expect anything else from you.)

either way, don’t stop.

yours, ronan


	9. october 25, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam remembers simpler times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is relatively short compared to the others, so sorry about that! but things are really starting to get good, so get ready ;)

dear ronan,

i’m glad that my letters are being helpful in some way. it is gratifying to be useful, even if they are only a slight comfort to you. i’m sure that something must be better than nothing. if this is what’s getting you through each day, trust that i will continue to write them for as long as you need them. just make sure that you continue to write back to me. your letters help me just as much as mine help you.

i am glad that you wrote to matthew. i saw him the other day on my way to work. we spoke briefly, and he seemed elated to have received a letter from you. he was carrying it in his pocket. he said that he had already responded to you, but he told me to tell you to respond to his letter when you receive it. he wishes to maintain a regular correspondence with you, and i think that this is a great idea, so i am passing on the message.

as for declan, i suppose i cannot blame you for that anger you described, though i do still wish that you would at least consider writing. i have always been of the mind that one should not take family that cares about them for granted. but in the end, it is your decision, so i will not push you.

yes, i have been hearing a lot about gansey from blue, though perhaps not as much as you have been hearing on your end. she hasn’t been around the factory as much recently, since she has been quite focused on the suffrage movement. (and i do mean _quite_ focused. she talks about the movement almost as much as she talks about gansey.) but whenever we do have a shift together, i always get an update from her.

the idea that gansey wants to marry blue isn’t surprising to me either. honestly, i think i have been expecting it since the moment they met. you could just tell by the look in his eyes that he’d met someone truly special. it felt like an inevitability.

not to get too sentimental on you, ronan, but i must admit that i admire their love. something like that really is extraordinary. it’s a thing that withstands the distance. it endures the sea and the differences that divide them, and it binds them together despite all that is between them. something like that has no regard for a war, because war is so insignificant to a love that is so boundless. a love that is ever-expansive.

i wish that i could have a love like that. i wish that i deserved one.

i will continue to fight this war to the best of my ability, and i will continue believing that i can win, but that doesn’t make it any easier. times have been difficult on this front, if i’m being honest. it is getting harder and harder to find a balance in my life. i think that there is something missing, something that prevents me from finding that balance.

i miss when the days were simpler. when i did not have to worry about balancing my education with the factory and my father’s abuse. when i could leave everything else behind by the end of the day and just let go with our friends in our forest. when we could make life into an adventure without running the risk of ruining it. when i was young and free and the world was mine. ~~these days i wonder if there was ever a point i actually had that~~

and i miss you being here to distract me from when it all began to change.

yours, adam


	10. november 10, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan nearly dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see? loooooongggg. definitely the longest chapter so far. but i'm SUPER proud of this installment so i hope you guys enjoy it too!

parrish,

i nearly died yesterday.

this front is brutal. obviously. there’s no denying that. even when we aren’t in the midst of action, it’s brutal. i thought that by now i would have been better equipped to handle it. i see now that this was a stupid thought, but it’s honest.

despite the brutality, there’s a sort of routine to it all. you live, and you fight to live another day, and then you live again until you have to fight again. you get used to the cycle. you get comfortable. you begin to stop believing it will ever actually hurt you, because you’ve made it this far, right? surely nothing terrible will happen now, not when it could have happened plenty of times already.

i'm sure you understand that as well as i do, parrish. i thought that the routine would have prepared me for anything. i thought myself somewhat invincible.

have you heard about the gas attacks, parrish? i’m sure you have. no doubt they’re all over the papers at home. papers i know that you read. (fucking scholar.) surely i’ve mentioned them in one of my letters. they happen almost daily. but even if you have heard of them, no second-hand account can really do the experience any justice. they are monstrous things. it is hard to believe that there are men in the world who would be willing to do that to other men.

when they happen, it’s like the gates to hell have been opened and the world is thrown helplessly into them, and it’s like you’ll go with it if you don’t act quick and think quicker. and this too becomes part of the routine.

no, they aren’t uncommon, and yes, they are fearful occurrences at the best of times. but it’s a different sort of fear when one does happen, and you go to reach for your gas mask and you find that it isn’t there and _where is it if i don’t find it right now i’m going to die and if i die then adam will never get another letter._

that kind of fear overtakes you. it’s all you can think about. in that moment, it really does seem like the world is ending, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. in that moment, it seems like hell is a lot closer than it used to be.

when it feels like the world is ending, it’s hard to believe it when somebody comes to save you. so, imagine my surprise when henry cheng emerges from the plumes of gas before me. he didn’t seem entirely human, with the gas mask disfiguring his face and the fumes partially obscuring him, twisting his body into unfamiliar shapes. he carried something in his hands. a gas mask. _my mask._ somehow, by chance, he had found the mask that i had dropped half an hour earlier, and by even smaller chance he had managed to find me before it was too late.

at that point, i was in rough condition. my body was weak. i couldn’t stand without leaning on the wall of the trench. my eyes stung, my throat burned, and my lungs felt as if they were becoming smaller with every breath. for a moment, i was sure that i was already dead and henry was some demon that had come to escort me to whatever awaits us on the other side. but it was very real when cheng shoved the gas mask down over my face and encouraged me to breathe. it was very real when he braced me against his side, allowing me to rely on his steady frame for support, and helped me out of the thick of the attack and to the infirmary.

i think the most surprising part of him saving me wasn’t in how the chances were so slim, but in how he was still willing to save me after the way i have treated him since we met. i have not been especially kind to him. i told him as much, but all he had to say on the matter was that not even an asshole like me deserved a death so terrible.

needless to say, i like cheng considerably more now.

somehow i managed to scrape by without any permanent damage, (it seemed like i was in that gaseous hell forever, but it must have been only a minute, maybe even less, before cheng arrived,) but i will be stuck in the infirmary for several days. until i’ve regained my stability or whatever. i’m not sure if this is a relief or not.

being stuck here has given me much more time than usual to think. (i know, it seems like i’ve been thinking a lot recently. you’ve infected me.) i keep thinking about what really matters to me. it’s a topic that has been on my mind since my last letter, but since then the thought has only continued to fester, so clearly my previous answer was not enough. gansey has his future with blue that keeps him going. cheng has that insane yet fierce love for his country that he’d go to the ends of the earth for. what has been keeping me going this whole time? what am i fighting for?

and i have come to realize that i am fighting for you, parrish. not just because your letters keep me sane. not for your letters at all, really. just you. i’m fighting for you because you’re fighting so hard just to keep on living. you have been fighting hard every day from the moment you learned what it means. even when you find it hard to believe in it, you keep going. you are fierce, persistent, ceaseless. it’s been a part of you for so long that i don’t think you know how to stop. and i can’t help but think about how exhausting that must be.

i’m fighting so that maybe someday i can help you get to a place where you can learn how to stop and keep living anyway.

your soldier, ronan.


	11. november 28, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam makes a confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay listen. this chapter is dramatic as hell. but a good dramatic. and what am i if not a dramatic writer? and what is adam if not a dramatic son of a bitch?
> 
> i also debated having the subject in this letter come later. but in the end, i decided that there was ultimately more i could do with having it now. i hope it doesn't seem too early! either way, enjoy!

dear ronan,

i’ve been trying to imagine what would have happened if you had died that day. to be completely honest, i can’t. how could i? a world without you in it doesn’t seem possible.

i remember what it felt like the first few days after you left. the way that henrietta seemed quieter, emptier. like it had lost a little of its life. i can’t imagine something like that on a more permanent scale, but that is what would have happened if you had died. i am coming to find that i think that nothing would ever be quite right without you. the world would be slightly desaturated, every sensation a little duller than before, everything beautiful a fraction less so.

what’s more, i can’t imagine what i would have done if you had died that day. i am not sure how i would have come to learn of it. i imagine your brothers would get the information. i imagine that matthew would tell me. i imagine that up until that point i would be wondering where your next letter was. but past that, everything is blank. it seems like nothing could possibly exist beyond that point. when i try to think of what might have happened, everything goes into a sort of panic. it gets to a point where i can’t think straight, because a world in which you are dead seems unfathomable. the life that you hold inside you seems to be infinite.

i am out in our forest today, as usual, and everything is reminding me of you. i keep tracing your name crudely hacked into the root beside me. and my name, a bit more neatly, beside yours. it reminds me of when you were here and everything was easier, when your presence seemed to steady me when i got too caught up in my head. when you would drag me along on some new adventure and i would leave my life behind. your letters provide some semblance of that now, but i’m coming to realize that you have always been a source of comfort for me. (even when you drove me insane.) now that you aren’t with me, it is like i’ve lost a pen with which i always write, and now everything is a bit off-kilter. it’s like i go to reach for you, your subtle comfort, only to find myself reaching for empty air. everything i’m doing suffers for it.

of course, i only come to realize this after you’re gone, after i realize the true risk of losing you. because that is just my luck.

and of course, it is just my luck that now i come to realize that i might be falling in love with you.

listen, i know that it is said that such a feeling is wrong. i know that i am supposed to think that it is wrong, that this is not the way things are supposed to be, that i am not supposed to feel this way. i know that it isn’t supposed to be _normal._ but hell, ronan, when have we ever been normal?

as much as i know how things are _supposed_ to be, i also know how things _are._ i remember once blue told me that how she feels for gansey, her love for him, is what keeps her grounded. ever since then, whenever i think about what keeps me grounded, the answer is always you. the answer is you whenever i anchor myself again by rereading your letters, which i keep in a box beneath my bed. the answer is you whenever my mind is leading me astray, as i find it often does these days, and the thought of you reminds me of what is real. the answer is you every time the factory demands such arduous labor of me and i think about how much i miss you as a distraction. that is simply the way things are.

i still do not believe that i deserve what this has the potential to become. something that could possibly cross the sea and endure a war to find you and connect you back to me. but i want to deserve it. i want it more than i have ever wanted anything in my life.

i can understand if the way i feel frightens you. it scares the hell out of me, because i have never felt like this, and i am unsure of what to do with it. i am unsure of what it means for us. the last thing that i want is to scare you away, but if you don’t feel the same, and you wish to cease our correspondence, i will stop immediately, and we will never speak of this again. i just couldn’t go on any longer without putting this feeling inside me to words.

i hope you can find it somewhere within you to forgive me.

-adam


	12. december 14, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan remembers something important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends! it seems like you guys think that introducing their feelings at this point was a good decision, so i'm glad you guys like it! and to new readers, hey! thanks for stopping by.
> 
> also what the hell is proofreading? i wouldn't know

dear adam,

there aren’t many quiet places on this front, but i managed to find one of the few that do exist so that i could write to you today. the quiet reminds me of you. how everything feels when i’m around you, or when i read your letters. you’re everywhere right now.

when i look back on every moment i’ve looked death in the eyes, you were always the first coherent thought to reach my mind. sure, there’s fear, there’s the instinct to fight or to flee, (usually to fight,) but the first words to form in my mind are always about you. it is always “if i die, i will never see him again, and our story will end without getting the chance to begin.” and then i fight.

every time i’ve fought to stay alive, fought to return home, it’s been for you. not just for your letters. not just to comfort you. (though of course i fight for both of those things as well.) but for the simple, selfish joy of being able to see you again. to be able to hear your laugh again, to be near you and exist by your side. to see how our story might go.

these days, you are synonymous with home. i can no longer think of home without seeing a clear image of you in my mind. your smile, your eyes, your hands. even though i haven’t seen you since june, i can recall your face like i just saw you an hour ago.

there’s nothing to forgive you for, adam. i will admit, i wasn’t exactly expecting a declaration of love. but it definitely is not unwelcome, not by any means. your feelings may scare you, but they don’t scare me. they never could. you deserve to feel something like this without fearing it. trust me, you deserve more than you’ll ever believe. ~~(i’ll beat the hell out of anyone who says otherwise.)~~

if anything, i am the one who should be scared. i don’t know what sort of man this war is molding me into. i have done so many things that i am not proud of, to the point where i begin to fear what i am capable of. i don’t know who i’ll be when this war is over, when i come home. i don’t know if i will be whole enough to give a piece of myself to you as i should.

but i’ll give you whatever i can afford to, if you will let me.

hey, guess what? i finally remember that quote you asked about so many months ago. the latin one.

do you remember the day last year (it was september, i think) when i found you alone in the forest? i had been looking for you for perhaps an hour. we were supposed to wreak whatever havoc i had planned that day, but you weren’t at home. i figured if you weren’t at home, you were in the forest, and i eventually found you sitting among the roots of our tree. you looked so small in that moment. so tense. like a cornered animal. you had just had a fight with your father, and he had hit you. i remember wanting to hit him back twice as hard.

but i sat down beside you. i remember the look on your face. you were a million miles away. maybe you weren’t even on the planet anymore. i remember thinking that you probably would not say anything. which was fine by me, because what did i have to talk about? i never really had a knack for words anyway.

but then you asked, maybe to me, maybe to the open air wherever you were, “why does it have to be this way?”

i thought about it for a while. because everything you say requires a little thought on my part, just so i don’t sound stupid when i answer you. then i responded with the quote. “ _per aspera ad astra.”_ through difficulties to the stars. (who the hell even said that? i can never tell those old fuckers apart. see, i bet that if you’d been the one to remember it, you would have remembered whoever said it too, you glorious bastard.)

i’ve been falling in love with you ever since that day. that was the first time you were truly vulnerable with me. you let me see the part of you that doubts, the part that doesn’t like to admit it when you don’t know something, the part that is willing to ask about it anyway. and you ended up asking me. you trusted me with your thoughts, which you have always held so sacred. and you continue to do so in your letters. each letter is a little piece of you that nobody else gets to see. it is not common for people to trust me with things that genuinely matter. but you did.

i get that everyone says the way ~~i you~~ _we_ feel is wrong. fuck them. we don't need anyone but each other to tell us what is right and what is wrong. i am here, telling you that this is right, that _we_ are right. because how could something like this be wrong?

 _per aspera ad astra,_ adam. you’re a smart man. no matter how much your mind leads you astray, you know that we could reach the stars. as long as we keep fighting.

yours, if you will have me, ronan


	13. december 30, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam wishes ronan a merry christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO another day of two chapters being posted! to be fair, i wrote chapter 12 last night and published it this afternoon, while i spent all day writing this chapter, but still! also, this chapter will be putting this fic over 10k words, which is CRAZY. by far the longest fic i've ever written. thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me so far!

my dear ronan,

the new year is approaching, and things seem different than they were before. i was so scared when i sent my last letter, scared of what damage it might have caused. i remember my hands were shaking while i was writing it. but after reading your letter, after learning of how you return my feelings, it feels as though an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. or perhaps the weight is simply lighter now that we carry it together. cliché, i know, but it is how i feel.

i am unsure of what to say next. congratulations, ronan, you’ve officially left me at a loss for words. i mean, how does one follow a reciprocated confession of love? (i said that i _thought_ i was falling in love before, but now i am certain that that’s what it is, because what else would i call this? balance, i suppose. focus. life. _everything._ )

i suppose the next logical step is to wish you a merry belated christmas. i haven’t heard much about the extent to which christmas is celebrated on your front. all i’ve read about is the truce that took place in 1914, but that was years ago. i am not sure of how much things have changed. but still, i thought that you would like to hear it from someone. a loved one.

i couldn’t afford much, but i did manage to get you a small gift, which should come with this letter. i have heard that these are rather difficult to come by on your front, especially during this time of year. even if what i’ve heard is inaccurate, i hope that you enjoy them anyway. (and don’t worry, i am not injured if you did not get me anything. i figure you must be a bit preoccupied.)

i’ve been thinking about what you said in your letter. about how you could see me clearly in your mind, despite it being several months since we’ve seen each other. though i do wish that we could simply see each other in person, i figured that a picture of me would be the next best thing. so i’m sending you a photograph along with this letter and my other gift. noah received a kodak camera from his parents for his birthday. it is an amazing little thing, and noah just adores it. he has rarely been seen without it since he got it. he likes taking pictures when people aren’t looking, or when they don’t expect it. scares the hell out of me half the time. this is one of those photos. he caught me laughing at something that blue had said. 

the photograph was actually taken on christmas eve. i had time off from the factory for christmas, can you believe that? a christmas miracle if there ever was one. i spent the night with blue and noah. we were missing you and gansey, but we thought that our time was better spent together than apart. then at least we wouldn’t be missing you two alone.

that night was the most fun i’ve had in a long time. i think you can see that in the picture. but it reminded me of how we spent last christmas, before you and gansey left. the five of us roamed the streets of henrietta on christmas eve. we walked in a line, completely blocking the sidewalk, arm in arm. i remember that you were next to me. (you were falling for me at that point, weren’t you? looking back, i think that i was falling for you at the time as well. i remember well what the proximity to you did to me.) and we sang christmas songs at the top of our lungs, which you were surprisingly good at, as i recall. we either forgot about or simply didn’t care about the whole world around us, watching. lord, we were obnoxious, weren’t we? but then again, you and noah had come up with the idea, so what else was i expecting?

after it had gotten too dark and the rest of the world had gone to sleep, we all stayed at gansey’s house. we remained awake well past a reasonable hour, sharing the benevolent heat of the hearth and talking about small things. none of us were truly concerned about the war across the sea that night. it seemed like you and gansey wouldn’t be leaving for another lifetime. none of the world seemed real except for the five of us.

god, i miss that.

i cannot tell if it’s just the effect of nostalgia, or perhaps the simple novelty of writing to the man who loves me, (possibly both. probably both) but i have been in an incredibly good mood for the past few days. i hope this letter accomplishes the same for you. tell gansey that i wish him a merry christmas as well, and that blue, noah, and i miss him. we miss both of you terribly. henrietta is so boring without you.

love, adam

 


	14. january 15, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan recounts the effect the holidays have on his front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did a surprising amount of research on this chapter. look up trench foot at your own risk.
> 
> anyway, spring break is sadly over, which means back to my less frequent updates. kinda sucks, but it'll at least give people time to catch up!

dear adam,

weather conditions here in france are getting a lot shittier and colder, and it makes me think of you and henrietta more than ever. i don’t think it ever got quite this cold back home. or maybe it’s just something about being away that makes it seem colder.

now i must wish you both a merry christmas and a happy new year, considering i missed both. christmas on this front, though nothing like it was back home, was actually not that terrible. not as bad as i was expecting, at least. on christmas eve, i saw a lot of men looking happier than i’ve ever seen them. some men i know have never smiled since i met them, but i saw them not only smiling, but _laughing_ that night. i guess their good mood was infectious, because i also felt considerably happier than usual. though maybe that was just residual happiness from you confessing your feelings. (i swear, when i read that letter, gansey thought i was finally beginning to lose my mind, that’s how much i was smiling.)

one thing that was probably contributing to the good mood that night was the booze. good god, the _booze._ another one of those christmas miracles you were talking about. now and then we get a small ration of rum, but that night the liquor was bountiful. it was a glorious and welcome occasion for all of us. (except for gansey. the man _cannot_ hold his alcohol.) (cheng can though, which was a surprising yet enjoyable revelation.)

more mail has been arriving since christmas eve than i’ve ever seen before. it’s been a great ordeal to sort through it all recently, and it was an even greater ordeal for me to beat back the others so i could get to your letter and parcel.

i couldn’t thank you enough for the socks, by the way. (and no, i didn’t get you anything, you bastard. i doubt you would have accepted anything i sent anyway.) you were right, as you usually are. socks are pretty difficult to come by out here. people out here covet them like they were a hunk of gold the size of your fist, especially if they're dry and relatively thick. i knew a man whose sock ended up growing onto his foot. i will not go into detail, but to make a long story short: it was gruesome, and he was sent home two weeks ago. we call it trench foot. trench foot is a bitch.

more than the socks, though, i appreciate the photograph you sent. you haven’t changed at all, adam. still gorgeous in a way that inexplicably makes me want to punch something. (i won’t, though. not unless i’m given a good excuse.) i have taken to keeping the picture in my inner chest pocket. looks like you made it to this front in some way after all, huh? call me sentimental if you want, but i like looking at it whenever there’s a lull in the action. ‘course, i sort of have to sneak it, because it would be hard to explain why i’d be looking at a picture of someone who’s “just a friend” the way i look at that photo.

cameras are surprisingly common on this front. lots of men i know have a little camera called a vpk, including cheng, because of course he does. he claims it’s to document the journey he’s taking with this war so he can go on to tell his story. i translated this to mean that he can go on to gloat about his achievements. either way, i remembered that you’ve never seen me with my head shaved. so i’ve decided to return the favor and enclose a photograph that i persuaded cheng to take of me. i told him it was for my brothers.

speaking of my brothers, i received a letter from matthew on christmas eve. we’ve been keeping up a somewhat regular correspondence since i first wrote to him. which is good, i guess. it’s nice to hear from him. but he asked if i had written to declan recently, because he hasn’t mentioned me in a while. i didn’t want to upset matthew, and i certainly didn’t want to lie to him. so i just didn’t say anything about declan when i wrote my response. which i am fine with, and he’ll have to be fine with it too. i don’t have anything to say about declan.

anyway, new year’s eve brought even more unusual joy around this front. and more booze. (i’m beginning to think that the joy is a direct result of the booze.) i thought i was in a dream. though i knew that this wasn’t the case, because it was much nicer than any dream i’ve had for months.

it was a different air than it was on christmas eve. 1918 brought with it a new sense of optimism. everyone was saying that we are one year closer to the war being won. i never really thought of it that way until now. i’d never truly thought of the war as something that could ever end, much less something we could win. ending this war and winning it seemed like a fantasy and not much else. but i’ll tell you, adam, it’s a nice thought. i don’t know how much i believe that it’ll happen, but i’d like it to. maybe gansey and cheng are getting to me, but i think that i am starting to truly believe that things could turn out better than just surviving, that life after the war could be glorious, and not just an ideal to get me through the day. and i think that might have something to do with you.

henry, gansey, and i sat with a group of men on new year’s and drank together. (gansey wisely decided to avoid the rum this time.) as the hour drew closer to midnight, the others began to talk about who they would have liked to kiss at the turn of the year if they could. their wives, the girl they fancied, any woman at all. all i could think about was how much i would have liked to kiss you that night.

love, ronan

p.s. i’ve been learning a lot more french recently. there’s a relatively new, very talkative young man from a small town just south of paris who is often stationed with us, and i’ve been picking up a bit from him. here's to hoping i've picked up enough for this to actually make sense. _mon couer bat pour toi, il acc_ _élère quand je vois une nouvelle lettre de toi, mais il y a autre chose qui réagit à la pensée de toi, mon cher._


	15. february 3, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam recalls when ronan had to make a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends! not being able to update daily anymore has been KILLING ME. i was having so much fun just busting these chapters out. but hey, at least you guys have more time to catch up now!

my dear ronan,

since you’ve told me that you had shaved your head, i’ve had a hard time imagining you without those curls of yours. but now that i have seen you without them, i must admit… it suits you.

i may not have changed, but to me it looks like you have. you look older, somehow. i think it’s in your eyes. this is not a bad thing, of course, but i had never thought i would see such eyes on you, who i’ve always idealized as someone so young and fierce. you retain that ferocity, because i don’t think you would be yourself without it, but it seems like a thing that has lived for a million years. it seems like a thing that was present for the dawn of time.

that smile, though. it hasn’t changed one bit. to be honest, i am surprised that such a smile could survive such a war. i have read story after story of the brutality of this war, how it has changed the men fighting it. i have met plenty of people who have lost someone to its cruelty. but somehow that smile of yours survives. i could not explain how you do it. i am not even there, but i still find it difficult to keep mine, sometimes.

i implore you to never lose that smile of yours, if you must keep only one thing. i am of the mind that something beautiful needs to come out of this war intact, after so much has been destroyed by its touch.

besides, i want to see that smile again if i am ever to give you that kiss that you wanted so badly.

in other news, i encountered matthew and declan the other day. i stopped to talk with them, as i usually do whenever i see them, and matthew seemed just elated to be getting regular letters from you. however, the tension radiating from declan was almost palpable. as tense as he was, though, i could tell that he was listening while matthew and i talked about you.

i will reiterate that i think writing to declan is worth consideration. it’s clear to me that he cares about what happens to you. of course, knowing you, i know that you don’t appreciate being told what you should do. that’s something that i can understand, so i am not going to try and force you to do anything.

talking about him reminds me of the day we heard word from the army, about whether we would be able to serve or not. you and gansey had been accepted. i had been denied.

the news devastated me in a way that i wasn’t expecting. i had been looking forward to leaving henrietta, making some sort of difference in the world. i was counting on being able to leave. i had stupidly never considered that my partial deafness would stop me. of course i had most looked forward to escaping the dark cloud that my father casts over my life, when it is the very thing that kept me from doing so. i had never felt so trapped, and i had never felt so ashamed of my affliction.

i had gone out to the forest, as i usually do. i was expecting to be alone all evening. but then you came. you really do have a knack for finding me when i need you. you sat next to me. we didn’t talk for a while, but the silence was comfortable. i knew that you wouldn’t talk until you were ready. that’s something we have in common.

and then you began to tell me about the fight you had just had with declan. you two used to fight frequently, so the fact that you had fought wasn’t surprising to me. what was surprising was the way that you were reacting. usually you would do something reckless, let your actions speak for you. but you spoke to me that evening. calmly. that’s how i knew that this was something serious.

you told me that you weren’t sure whether you should stay or go. you had something to prove in going now, but declan had a point about abandoning your family. i don’t think you would be willing to admit that now, but i remember it.

you hadn’t said the words, but i could tell that you were asking for my advice. i told you that i couldn’t make the decision for you. as much as i wanted to go, and as much as i wished to urge you to go in my stead, i was not going to. i wasn’t going to let my guilt over not being able to serve sway your decision, because i knew that you usually end up doing the right thing when you make the choice for yourself. i knew that you would do what you had to do. and you crossed the sea and went to war.

all i am saying is this: you went to war because you believed with all your being that it was right. you wrote to matthew and continued to write because you thought the same. i know you, ronan. i know that you go with your instinct, and i know that your instinct usually is not wrong. i am not going to tell you in any definite terms what you should do, but i will tell you that i think you should at least take another look at this declan situation and do what you think is right. and know that whatever you decide to do, i will stand by that decision with you, because i am choosing to believe that we are on the winning side.

love, adam

p.s. i am not entirely sure whether i am flattered that you learned french to compliment me, or appalled by the nature of what you said. either way, color me impressed. besides, what else could i have possibly expected? from you _or_ the french?


	16. february 22, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan shares important news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends!! with this fic over halfway done, i'm more excited than ever to get it done and have you guys read it! i'm so excited about what's coming next!

dear adam,

your letters always seem to arrive right when i need them most. things have not been going well on this front, and i have to hear your voice in my mind right now, see your words on a page, while it feels like the world is spinning off its axis.

gansey has been shot.

i was there when it happened a few days ago. right there beside him. we’d thought the next few hours would be uneventful. he was talking about something. i don’t know what. i wasn’t quite paying attention. i just remember a sudden onslaught of gunshots from the other side, and gansey hitting the ground with blood flooding from the new wound in his thigh, and me wishing i had been paying more attention.

my nightmares shape themselves around that moment.

it isn’t a fatal wound, the medics have told me, though when it happened it looked like it could have been. when it happened, there was so much blood. it didn’t seem possible for a man to live with that much blood outside of his body.

adrenaline pounded through my veins as i carried him out of harm’s way. it felt as if my blood was fire, like the panic inside me was a living beast that couldn’t be restrained by the confines of my skin. the only thing i could think about was getting him to safety, getting him help. i didn’t care if i got hurt too. nothing else mattered.

i remember when gansey passed out in my arms from the pain, and the world seemed to stop revolving. adam, i think that may have been one of the most terrifying moments of my life. the split second in which i thought that my best friend might be dead.

i carried him to the first group of medics that i could find, though it wasn’t easy, as they were as scattered and frantic as the rest of us. i stayed by gansey’s side until i was forced to give them some space, and even then i wasn’t quite ready to leave. cheng had to drag me away by the back of my shirt.

to keep myself from losing my mind, i wrote a letter to blue and told her what happened. it was difficult writing to her. i had trouble finding the words that she would need to hear. but i did it. i figured that gansey wouldn't be in much shape to write to anyone for a while, and i knew that if anything like this were to happen to me, i would want someone to write to you in my stead.

right now, i am writing to you by the side of gansey’s cot. cheng is here too, but neither are saying much for once. the medics say gansey won’t be able to walk on his own for a while, so he is slated to leave the front tomorrow on temporary leave until his thigh is healed. i suppose you could call this our last hurrah until he returns. he’ll be gone for about three months, they tell us. gansey tries to act like this is not a relief to him, but i know him better than that.

gansey now knows about us, by the way. the nature of our letters and our relationship. he caught me staring at the photograph you sent me a few days ago, and he drew his own conclusions. so much for sneaking it, i guess. i didn’t have much of a choice but to tell him after that, since he knows me as well as i know him. he finds no issue with our relationship, as far as i can tell, which i was mildly surprised by. he told me that he was more surprised that our letters weren’t comprised of insults and arguments. but, more importantly, he says he is glad that i have someone to be there for me. (bastard said he was scared i was going to die alone.) and he’s glad that you are watching out for me, in a way. without my saying so, he seems to know how much your letters mean to me. how much they help me.

gansey says hello now. he wishes you luck in your studies, and he hopes that you will tell blue that he is fine and will stay that way for quite a while. he has written to her by now, but he wants her to hear the words come from someone, especially someone as sensible as you. he also hopes that you will remind her to keep from getting arrested at her rallies. i know that you will not do so, because you are as sensible as gansey says, and i would prefer for you to be alive when i see you again.

love, ronan

p.s. i’m sure you understand that though i hear what you are saying about declan, i can’t even begin to think about writing to him. not now, when so many more pressing things demand my attention. i will think about what you said when i have the time, but i can’t promise a miracle.


	17. march 18, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam gives an update on his front.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys so much for 1.4k hits!! that is literally insane!! now i feel kinda bad about my upcoming plans.... but you guys signed up for it when you saw the tag "ww1 au" and thought reading would be a good idea so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

my dear ronan,

it’s late evening right now, but henrietta is starting to get warmer this time of year and writing out in the woods is becoming far less unpleasant. spring is approaching, and i am glad that it brings changes such as this with it, because as soon as i read your letter, i knew that i needed to reply as soon as possible.

i heard about gansey’s wound before your letter. blue received the news before i did. she reacted surprisingly well, as far as i could tell. after she came to me with your letter to her, we went to the forest together and spent a couple hours just talking about the war, and about you and gansey. i ended up telling blue about us as well, since i don’t have much faith in gansey on the subject of keeping a secret from blue for longer than a week. she did not seem bothered by it. she had some questions, of course, but she did not tell me that we would be going to hell and turn away in revulsion, so there’s that. honestly, it felt good to talk to her about all of this after admitting what you are to me. blue could understand what i was going through, and i could understand what she was going through. understanding someone really is a beautiful thing.

i passed on gansey’s message in your letter before coming here to write. excluding the bit about avoiding arrest, of course. i would very much like to keep my head, so i did my best to make sure she did not bite it off. she told me to thank you for all you’ve done for both of them in saving him and passing on his message. she said that this was very good of you, (this seemed to surprise her, though i can’t imagine why) and that she owes you greatly for saving his life.

blue has been throwing herself into her work and protests recently, saying she needs to dedicate herself to something useful. and she’s been doing some amazing work, i must say. she’s fighting a war too, and she’s winning. she seems to be more driven than ever, which i must appreciate, especially since she’s been taking on some of my hours at the factory and giving me more time for my studies.

speaking of which, gansey should be pleased to know that they have been going very well. a lot of things have been going well, actually. my studies are finally going the way i want them to, my work is becoming somewhat less grueling, i haven’t even had a bad encounter with my father in a long time. granted i mostly just stay out of his way and out of the house these days, but it seems like this strategy is doing me some good, because he hasn’t hit me or done so much as yelled at me for a month, at least. it finally looks like things are beginning to go my way. i’ve been saving as much money as i could, and soon i’ll have enough to strike out on my own and leave that house forever.

i hate getting my hopes up so high, but every day i have been getting one step closer to winning my own war, and god, it’s so beautiful.

i will say, the only way things could be better is you being here to see my victory. you’ve been away for so long and all i want right now is to see you again. writing letters to you is great, but i wish i could just speak to you. i’ve been looking at your photograph more and more often recently. that shaved head really does look quite handsome on you.

i remember what you said, about the other men on your front saying on new year’s that your war is one step closer to being over. i’ve seen the sentiment reflected in the papers, and i can feel more than ever now how true it is on my front. i hope you can feel it as well, and i hope that the feeling will bring you home sometime soon. we’re almost there, ronan. we just need to fight a little longer.

love, adam


	18. march 31, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan makes a proposition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends! this fic has gained some new readers since the last time i updated, so hello new readers! thanks for joining us! hope you're enjoying your stay, and without further ado, here's the new chapter.

dear adam,

the front feels different without gansey. it’s very strange.

of course, i’ve been getting frequent letters from him since he left. they moved him to an infirmary for healing soldiers not far from the front, so his letters are a near weekly occurrence. how he manages to write to me with updates that often while nothing has been happening, i don’t understand and i never will. you know how he is, he can turn the smallest thing into an event. he tells me his recovery is going well, and he seems very enthusiastic about being able to take more time to write to blue and catch up on his reading. he seems pretty content to be there, as far as i can tell.

i don’t know if i would be as happy and comfortable as gansey is. the more time i spend on this front, the less i remember how it felt to be away from it. i’ve grown so used to the action, so used to the wariness of action, that i don’t think i’d know what to do if i found myself somewhere that was completely safe. sometimes i wonder if such a place even exists anymore, or if it ever existed in the first place. i used to think so, but you’re not here, and you still face the danger of your father. blue still faces the threat of being arrested, gansey of his wound getting infected. i truly don’t quite remember what it’s like to be at peace.

but i want to know it again. i would give nearly anything if i could call the quiet a friend like i used to. the closest i can get to knowing it again is reading and rereading your letters, or looking at your photograph. reminding myself of you always helps me to feel a little bit more at ease. i know it isn’t directly your doing, but i wanted to thank you for that, even if it’s just a fraction of what it is when i’m there with you.

without gansey here beside me during the lulls in action, i find myself getting bored. he talked my ear off most of the time, and i usually just ignored him, but still. i miss the poor bastard. the small bit of familiarity he provided. at least i still have you.

if i’m being honest, which i always am, i can sense the change coming as much as you can. i can almost taste the victory on the air, no matter how stupid that sounds. the other men on this front can taste it too, i think. the morale here has been different recently. everyone has been more hopeful, a little more optimistic.

i’ll admit, i’m starting to feel that way too. maybe gansey and cheng’s endless optimism really has infected me, because i can’t wait for this war to be over. i can’t wait to see it through and come back home as the hero who was there for when the world changed for the better. the taste of victory is intoxicating, and under its influence, i really do believe what gansey and cheng have always preached, that this could be something beautiful.

more than anything, i can’t wait to see you again. i wish that my war would hurry the fuck up and be won already so i can make it back in time to see you win yours, because i know that it’ll be a wonderful thing to witness. but i’d settle for just hearing your sweet voice again, feeling your touch, being able to hold you and verify that all of this is real. i need to hear you say all the things you say in your letters. i don’t know what i’d do with myself, how i could possibly contain the sheer forcen of my joy, but i’ll figure it out when i get there.

i just want to be with you again and have all that entails. i want to hear all the boring details of your daily life when the sun goes down. i want to sit with you beneath our tree again and quote some more ancient latin shit at you to impress you. i want to drag you along on another little adventure. and i was thinking that we could do all of those things once i get back. i was thinking that maybe you wouldn’t need to worry about blowing all of your savings on a place of your own. you could, if you wanted to, come live at the barns with me. we would have it to ourselves, with declan having his own place and matthew beginning boarding school and later university. it could be just you and me, and then we’d have all the time in the world.

with an intensity that increases with each passing day, i’ve been wanting to reacquaint myself with peace. when i get back from this war, i don’t want to never know how to live again. i want to relearn what it means to be still. and i want you to be by my side while i do, to help me along. after all, you’ve been by my side throughout this war. why should that have to end once it’s over?

this war has been one of the most important things i have ever done in my life. it has come to define a new part of myself that i never knew had the potential to exist. but i do not want it to become my life. i don’t want this part of me to define who i am. i would like to move away from this phase victorious, and move on to the next, which will entail a quiet life in the place i love, hopefully with the man i love by my side.

with all my affection, ronan


	19. april 20, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which a mistake is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 19, aka my inner chengsey/sarchengsey goblin coming out to play.
> 
> also, no, you aren't reading this wrong. you haven't missed anything. i didn't mess up. enjoy!

dear adam,

the post came today, but i did not receive your letter. i think that the stupid bastards in charge must have lost track of it. this happens a lot from what i’ve heard. honestly, i’m surprised they haven’t lost one of our letters before now. whatever the case, i decided to write again anyway, so i am sorry if you asked any questions in your last letter that i can’t answer.

things on this front haven’t changed much since i last wrote. with gansey gone, cheng and i have had to resort to keeping each other company, seeing as neither of us have much of a choice. we’ve been trying to find some sort of common ground between us, anything to make gansey’s less of a chore. so far, only one success. a few days ago, i experienced a sudden rush of confidence and decided to tell him a bit about you. this came about after i saw him very openly ogling another man at our post. i made an assumption.

i only briefly mentioned you, but judging by his reaction, i’d said all i needed to. his eyes just lit up, and he proceeded to ask me far too many questions about you and our relationship and my own preferences. it was unbelievably irritating, and the conversation resulted in him resolving to meet you once the war is over and we’ve returned to virginia. (i’m sorry, i couldn’t stop him.) but either way, my assumption was correct. we have an attraction to men in common, so that’s something, i guess. though he still feels some affection for women, while i do not, so even this connection is a small one. still, it’s better than nothing. (honestly, i don’t know how i didn’t realize that he’s drawn to men after seeing how he acted around gansey.)

other than this though, we have very, _very_ little in common. we’re about as alike as a match and a faucet. but strangely enough, i don’t mind that much. the more i get to know cheng, the more tolerable i find him. likeable still seems like a bit of a stretch, but maybe we’ll get there someday.

anyway, it’s getting warmer on this front. it’s got me thinking about henrietta summers again, and all they brought with them. lazy afternoons, little adventures down to the creek or up into the hills, sitting in the forest with you.

it’s also got me thinking about what we could be. ever since i put the thought to words, i’ve been thinking about my offer in my last letter every day. on this front, you need to have something mundane to think of to keep yourself sane. and i’ve been imagining what those summers could be like when i get back and possibly when you join me at the barns. i imagine coming downstairs in the mornings and seeing you sitting at the dining room table with your damned newspapers. i imagine sitting on the porch with you in the evening and watching the sun sink below the horizon. i imagine taking your hand in mine. i imagine the quiet secret of a life with you, and i imagine myself befriending peace anew in your company. it’s sentimental as hell, i know, but it’s honest.

there is not much else for me to report. i missed reading your letter, but hopefully the post will not fuck up again and i will get to read the next one. i hope you’re doing well, and i hope there wasn’t anything too important in that last letter.

love, ronan


	20. may 18, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which everything is questioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

dear adam,

it’s been nearly two months since i’ve gotten a letter from you. i should know, i’ve been counting the days. usually your next one would have arrived by now, and i don't believe that the post would mess up again. what’s going on, adam? you seemed so hopeful the last time you wrote. what happened?

are you ignoring my letters? i don’t know what would prompt you to do so. maybe i said something that scared you away. maybe i said something that convinced you that this isn’t something you really want. maybe you decided that you don’t want anything to do with me.

was it me?

 was it my offer about the barns? i’m sorry, if that is what it was. it was too forward of me. i know how much you value your autonomy. maybe i’d gotten a little too hopeful. it was just something i thought about to keep myself distracted. maybe that’s all it ever should have been. a thought i kept to myself. i had just thought i would offer you an escape. i should have known better, though. i should have known that you would be hesitant to rely on me. i just got carried away. too caught up in my fantasies.

if that is what it was, just tell me. if the offer makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to accept it. i will not be another thing in your life that only shackles you down. refuse me if you need to.

just please write me back. let me know that everything’s alright. i need to hear from you.

love, ronan


	21. june 5, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which things do not return to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :))))

adam,

gansey returned to the front yesterday. things don’t feel any different than before, though. i thought that his return might give me something new to focus on. something other than you. after all, one can only reread letters so many times before nothing more comes of it. i’ve nearly memorized them all by now.

it’s been three months since i’ve heard from you, and the regret and the guilt and the fear are all far more savage beasts than anything i feared i myself would become. if it was something i said, i’m begging you to forgive me, adam. i don’t know what would have driven you away, but whatever it was, i'm sorry. 

i know i should have expected this the entire time. i’ve never been good with words, but i had hoped for once that i wouldn’t fuck up. i’ve been racking my brain trying to think of what i could have said that would have stopped you from writing, what kind of mistake i could have made, but the more i think, the more wrong everything seems.

i can suddenly think of so many reasons why you would have left me.

please, adam. say something. something to let me know that all of this has been real. tell me you’re still on my side.

\- ronan


	22. july 1, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which a decision is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends. i'm sorry.

parrish,

i don’t know if you still read these letters. for what it’s worth, i finally gave in and wrote to declan. it was gansey who had suggested that i do it, but i was thinking of what you said all those months ago. about how my instincts always lead me to do the right thing.

well, my instincts have reminded me that it isn’t right to leave someone in the dark for so long. i think that’s the only thing they’ve been right about recently.

-ronan


	23. july 26, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the author is very sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, seriously. i'm sorry.

you were never here, adam, but the front feels emptier without you.

-ronan


	24. august 18, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the author is EXTREMELY sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY Y'ALL. YOU KNOW I HAD TO DO IT TO EM.

i miss you.


	25. september 16, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which there is finally a response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO i was planning on posting this later but i'd hate to make you guys suffer too much, so here it is! thank god that's over, am i right? :)
> 
> in other news, this fic has breached 200 comments and 2000 hits. WHAT?!?!? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH. no matter how much i torture y'all, i love you all and i'm so grateful for your continued support ;-;
> 
> p.s. this fic is completely drafted in my word doc right now, so hopefully i'll be able to wrap it up VERY soon ;)

ronan,

there aren’t enough words in any language to describe how sorry i am. i never would have left you, but the choice was not mine to make.

my father discovered your letters back in april. i kept them in a box beneath my bed. he found them one day while i was at work. read them. read all the private things that were supposed to be from you to me and me alone. he uncovered your thoughts. he learned how you ~~feel~~ felt about me, and he learned how i feel about you after reading my half-drafted response.

when i got home that night, it was… quite honestly, that was one of the worst nights of my life. i’ve told you how i tend to detach when he gets to be too much? well, i don’t even remember most of it now. all the evidence i have of that night is the ghost of the pain in my memory, my nightmares, and the scars.

i was stuck in that house for months afterward. my bedroom was a prison cell, my father the warden. i’ve never hated a place more than i hated that bedroom. i lost _so much_ in those months while i was stuck there. no work, no school, no forest. no you. nothing. and i was powerless to change it.

i don’t think he initially did it with any malice. i think, at first, he only locked me up to hide the incriminating evidence that marred my skin. it became malicious when your letters continued to arrive. he would read them aloud to me through the cracks in the door. then he would burn them. i could smell the smoke every time he did this, all your words gone, wasted, without me being able to see them. i thought i would choke on the weight of it. the worst of it all was that i could hear your pain, could feel it as if it were my own, but there was nothing i could do to reach out to you. nothing i could offer you that might bring you peace of mind, or at least some sort of explanation as to why i was gone.

it wasn’t until mid-august that i was able to get out. my father could only excuse my absence for so long. he could only say “he’s sick” so many times before blue started becoming concerned with my absence. one day, her arrival perfectly coincided with my father leaving the house to get himself more liquor. she broke the lock on the bedroom door and got me out of there with the clothes on my back, nothing more. i had no savings, since he had taken them from me as fuel for his addictions. i didn’t have your letters, all of them reduced to ash and smoke in his fireplace. he had taken you from me.

i have always been so adamant about leaving that house on my own terms. it was always something i wanted to do for myself. as much as i grieved the loss of that, and as much as i hate to admit it, i was more relieved just to be out of there. i figured i would have all the time in the world to mourn my autonomy once i was no longer fearing for my life. and i got that time, after blue offered me refuge in her home. she said it was repayment to you for saving gansey’s life.

this brings me to now. i managed to get my hands on your most recent letter, if you could even call it that. so few words on that page before me, and yet they are perhaps some of the most precious things i have ever seen.

i cannot begin to describe how guilty i feel for having left you alone on your front, for not being able to fight on my own. i suppose i’ve won my war now? it isn’t as sweet as i had hoped. it feels more like i ran away. like i didn’t win, it just ended.

how could i have won, when i couldn’t even save myself in the end?

and you’ve been alone for so long now, and all i can think to say is that i’m so sorry, ronan. that’s all i’ve wanted to say to you recently. well, no, that’s not true. i can think of one other thing i want to say. but i don’t think it is something that i deserve to say, at least not now. not after such a large expanse of nothing.

i need to hear from you again, as soon as you receive this letter. i need to know that you are alright. i can’t get by on only three words that are already a month old. it doesn’t feel like i will be able to think until i get more. so please, write me back. these past several months have been hell without you.

\- adam


	26. september 29, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which important news is shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy lesbian visibility day! it's my day, so that means i'm allowed to be this evil. sorry.

dear adam,

first and foremost, i would like to offer my sincerest apologies. i’m sure that i am not the one that you were wishing to hear from. i hope that you can forgive me for that.

i am sure you already know this, but i am aware of the nature of your relationship with ronan. not that i have an issue with it, of course. i think it is wonderful that he has somebody to be there for him back in henrietta, somebody to talk to.

he hasn’t been talking much recently, since you stopped sending letters. (i do not know why you stopped, but i trust that you had good reason for it. from what blue has told me in her letters, your father has been claiming you’re sick, though she was not inclined to believe that. i didn’t much believe it myself. primarily because i am familiar with your father and what he sometimes does to you. but also because you are sensible, and you know what impact the cessation in your correspondence would have on ronan. i know that you wouldn’t simply stop responding to someone you cared for so much, and i don’t believe that being sick would stop you. when blue learned from me that ronan had not been receiving letters recently, we felt that something may be wrong. i encouraged blue to find out what was happening, but i haven’t heard back from her yet. i do hope you are alright, adam.) i am sure that your reasoning is in your most recent letter, which i, of course, have not read. i am merely keeping it safe for when ronan wakes up.

this brings me to the unfortunate business of breaking the news to you.

yesterday, ronan was shot.

it was a familiar scene, one we’d both played parts in before. this time, though, the roles were switched, and it was far worse than before. it was another quiet day. another unexpected barrage of artillery fire from the opposing side. though this time, it was ronan that hit the ground beside me. the bullet struck somewhere in the middle of his torso. (i couldn’t tell you where exactly, but i thought i heard the crack of bone. of course, i can’t be sure of this. everything was so loud and so fast.) i did everything i could to keep him safe and alive until medics arrived. not that i was able to do much. i couldn’t even carry him to them, like he did for me.

and now they won’t let me see him. they tell me that they need space, that seeing him would be a waste of time until he came to. i strongly disagree, but they wouldn’t hear a word of my objections. all they will tell me is that he is in unstable condition, but at least for the moment, he is alive. they are unsure he will stay this way.

i am so sorry that i can’t provide any more information that may offer solace to you, but for now, this will have to be enough. i will be sure to write ~~if he d~~ if i need to.

sincerely, richard gansey


	27. october 11, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam struggles with the truth of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is almost complete.... what the absolute HELL. i can't believe it. thank you to everyone who's been following along so far!

my love, my ronan,

as far as i know, i haven’t lost you yet, but with the way the world seems to have veered wildly and uncontrollably off course, i may as well have. i’m trying to hold onto the hope that you are still alive. i have been trying to tell myself that i would know if you had died. i would have felt it. because how could i not have? how could i not see the change, when everything that you embody leaves the world with you? all the fire, the color, the vibrancy.

but anything might have happened in the span of time between when gansey sent his letter and when i received it just now. for that i hate this world we live in, how cruel and unforgiving time can be. how the distance between us blinds me to the intricacies of your condition. in a perfect world, i would know every detail of your pain so that i would know what exactly i could do to help you. but this world is far from perfect. this threat on your life is proof enough of that. the harsh truth of this world is that i just don’t know. i _can’t._

i once told you that i had tried to imagine a world without you in it. how impossible it used to feel, how integral a part of the universe you seemed to be.

no, _are._ it may be true that the world would continue to exist without you. the sun would still rise and set, the tides would continue to change, the wind would continue to blow. the cosmos would carry on as if nothing had ever gone wrong. but universe would be lacking some fundamental part of itself, and the difference made, the hole you would leave behind, would be an absence that i would never be able to ignore. everything around me might carry on as normal, but i would be permanently thrown off kilter.

right now, i would give anything to take you up on that offer of yours. i would give the world to see you coming down the stairs in the morning. i would give the sun to hold your hand on the porch and watch it set. i would give the tides to sit in the forest with you and hear another latin quote. i would give the wind for you to drag me into something small and stupid so that we can be free like we used to be. i would give the cosmos for us to have that quiet secret of a life at the barns, just the two of us. if they were mine to give, i would relinquish it all in a heartbeat to have any semblance of a life with you.

my mind twists the possibilities of your condition into crooked and fearful shapes, to the point where i cannot rely on it anymore. right now, i need that certainty that you always speak with. with you, it has never been “if i come back,” it has always been “when.” i need that now. i don’t need all of this thinking and doubting that is driving me insane. i just need to stop entertaining the ifs and start believing in the whens, like you do.

because _when_ you come back, the first thing you will hear will be me telling you that i love you.

yours, adam


	28. october 22, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which ronan shares news that will change everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER WHAT THE FUCK AHHHHHHHHHHH.

my dear adam,

to see my name in your handwriting again is to take a breath of air after a lifetime of drowning.

i’m pleased to report that i am making a rocky recovery with my wound. i can stay awake and walk limited distances with assistance and everything. i’m practically a functional human being, right? except i still have some difficulties breathing. and it hurts. quite a bit, really. some days are better than others, that’s for sure. they say it’ll take me a long time to fully recover. and yet, i find myself wanting to track down the man who shot me and shake his hand.

because they are sending me back home. they’re sending me back to _you_.

i leave today, as soon as i send this letter. i am slated to arrive on november 6, but i am not sure whether the letter or i will arrive first. so, all i’m saying is that you may be in for _quite_ the surprise.

i find it hard to care about much else. sure, i’m still wounded, and it still hurts like a bitch and it still might kill me. but all i’ve been able to think about since they told me is how henrietta is nearly within my grasp again, and how much i’ve missed it.

i don’t care about the lack of letters anymore. who needs letters when the way that i feel for you goes far beyond that expanse of nothing? all i needed was to know that you’re still with me. besides, i understand. you’ve been through hell and back, and in spite of that, you endured it all. you didn’t give up the fight, adam. far from it. you survived. you _won._ so fucking what if you needed a little help to get there? a war fought with just one man never ends well. hell, you’ve fought the majority of it alone, and yet here you are on the other side of it. i never knew that i had the capacity to be so proud of someone. i’m only disappointed that i didn’t get to see it for myself.

but at least i’ll get to see you in your laurels after your victory. because i’m _coming back home to you_. what a fucking glorious and incomprehensible thing that is.

i know with no complete certainty whether i will survive this wound or not. nobody does. (except maybe god, but when does he ever tell me anything?) but i do know that i’ll fight death tooth and nail if it means that i can see you again and we can finally do all those things that we imagined.

i also know that the man i am now, the man this war has turned me into, is held together with stitches and hitched breaths. i worry that when you see me again, it’ll be a different thing entirely than exchanging letters every month. i worry that you’ll see what i’ve become and change your mind. but we’ve come this far. i think that there may still be some semblance of a man within me that you could love. i think, at the least, we should give this strange and altered thing our best try. let our story really begin and see what it looks like when it blooms.

in my first letter to you, i spoke of how the journey across the sea seemed to take an eternity. i told you that if i were ever to take that journey again, it would be too soon. but now, after i finish writing this, i will do it all again to be back by your side where i belong, and where i would fight a far greater war to remain.

yours, from across the ever-expansive sea, ronan


	29. november 30, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which adam reflects on the new life he finds ahead of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, uhhh. wow. this is it. this is the last chapter. this marks the end of my first EVER completed multi-chapter fic. i literally could not be prouder of myself right now. this fic has come to mean so much to me over the past (almost) two months since i posted the first chapter. i can't believe it's over.
> 
> i want to thank every single person who is reading this note right now. you stuck with me to the end, and that gives me so much hope for my future as a writer. so thank you SO SO MUCH for all the hits and the kudos and the comments. i love you guys and i'm sorry for all the angst <3333

my dearest ronan,

you are finally home, and we are together again, so there isn’t much of a point in my writing this letter. i suppose this is more for my own peace of mind than anything else. to make sense of my own thoughts, and the new world i find surrounding me. i doubt you will ever actually read this, but i am still addressing it to you. that always helped before.

you arrived home from your front on november 6, just like you said you would. you’ve always been true to your word, after all. your letter arrived a couple days before you did, which is good. if you’d arrived unannounced, i think i would have had a stroke.

i was standing on the porch of the barns, waiting for you. i remember how my heart was pounding against my chest as the setting sun lit the horizon ablaze. i thought i might burst. and then there you were, cutting a bold silhouette against the golden wash of the sky. your gait was a bit staggered, since you had no one to help you, but that wasn’t something i paid much attention to. my mind went vacant as soon as i saw you. all i could think was _ronan. it's ronan_. the next thing i knew, i was flying down the path to meet you as fast as my legs could carry me. i don’t think i’ve ever run like that in my life. it took everything in me at the time to stop a few feet short of you so i wouldn’t knock you over. i don’t think that would have went over well.

so i settled for standing there, taking in the reality of you. i was trying to catch my breath, but the sight of you kept me utterly breathless. you were there before me, looking vibrant and solid as you always have. like someone who wouldn’t be leaving this world for a long time. and i’ll never forget the way you were looking at me. like i was the most special thing in the world.

at that moment, every thought came crashing back into my head. i remembered the promise i made in my last letter. i was about to say it, but then you closed the gap between us, and you dropped your bags to take my face between your hands, and you kissed me.

we didn’t talk that night. both of us had far too much to say and all the time in the world to say it. instead, we sat on the porch together. we held hands, watched the sky go dark and the stars come out. after a while, we went inside, and we slept.

the war was won on november 11, only a few days after you came home. you tell me that this is fine. you tell me that this life is all that matters to you now. but i come downstairs early in the morning and i see you reading the stories in the papers. i saw the look on your face when gansey returned, victorious. you tell me you’re okay, but i know how badly you wished to come home a hero. i know how badly you wanted to win.

but life goes on. gansey is back home now. you, blue, noah, and i were all there when he disembarked from his ship. blue didn't show as much restraint as i did when i welcomed you back. gansey’s lucky he didn’t get another concussion or fall off the dock entirely. clearly, those two are as happy and in love as ever. perhaps more so.

he also brought henry back with him. i can see why you might have disliked him, ronan, but i think he’s a good man. maybe i’m biased. he did save your life, after all. but still, i like him. he may be a bit overzealous, but i like his passion, and i like how happy he seems to make gansey. blue seems to like him as well.

the six of us went out to the forest the day they arrived. we sat beneath our tree again, and there was a taste of the old days in the air, along with something new. noah took a picture. i keep it on the mantle of ~~your~~ our fireplace. beside it is a box containing all of the letters we didn’t lose.

these days, i am returning to my studies full force, as i’ve always wanted. now that i am mostly free from the shackles placed on me by that cursed factory and my father, i can pursue whatever i like. it seemed to take me my entire life to get here, but now i find a whole new lifetime waiting for me, and it looks like it might be wonderful. time can be funny that way.

you’ve been working on mending your relationship with your brothers. it isn’t perfect. neither of us know if it will ever be perfect, but i am still incredibly proud of you for going with what you think is right, as you always do. 

things still aren’t easy for us. they are far from it. this life isn’t as quiet as we always fantasized. i still find myself flinching when a door swings open. the other day, you accidentally set down a dish too hard, and it was another hour before my heart rate finally evened out. i hate the way the world contracts around me whenever i hear footsteps approaching from down the hall. i have days when i cannot get out of bed.

and i don’t think there will ever be a time when i will be free from the guilt of not being able to follow you to france. of not fully understanding when you wake in the middle of the night beside me screaming and drenched in sweat, or when a perfectly normal day descends into short breaths and panicked eyes and me having to reassure you that you’re home, and you're safe.

no, things aren’t easy. but they’re getting easier, as we exist alongside each other. slowly but surely, we build each other back up. i can sometimes help you out of a panicked state by sitting beside you and saying whatever i can think of until your breathing steadies. i tell you about my day, sometimes. sometimes i share my thoughts about the news. small things, normal things. you once said something about mundane thoughts keeping you sane in france, so that is typically what i talk about when the panic sets in.

and you can coax me out of bed when i feel stuck. some days you offer to take me down to the creek. other times it’s as simple as offering to make me a cup of coffee. and whenever my heart starts to race from the swing of a door or the clink of a dish, you run your fingers through my hair, and i begin to feel a little grounded.

you and i, we have a long way to go. we consist of scattered pieces, but i fit together a little better when i am beside you, and you fit together a little better beside me, and it begins to seem possible for a world to exist in which we do not have to keep fighting to remain whole.

you are sitting across the room from me now, as i write this letter i will never have to send. you are staring out the window, and i wonder what is happening inside your head. if i wanted to, i could read this letter to you right now, offer up the workings of my mind, and perhaps catch a glimpse of yours in return. perhaps i will.

but as i look at you right now, washed in the early evening light pouring from the window before you, i think that i have never seen anything so beautiful. and i find that i don’t need to understand every little thing to know that i would never have us any other way.

yours, from your side until death should take me, adam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another HUGE thank you, friends. if you are ever interested with keeping up with my fic antics, seeing some behind the scenes thoughts, or just listening to me scream about my various fandoms, feel free to follow me on twitter @pynch__me. more fics to come! ;)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading friends!


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